From
time to time it gets a hold of me. Then I can feel God begin to
jubilate inside of me. Most of the time it is accompanied by much ‘body
riot’. Sometimes that ‘riot’ even resembles the fits the mentally
disabled probably experience, when they lose themselves in violent
shocks of the abdomen and the spine, in tearful eyes, and foam on their
mouth. In frenzy I dance around the room shouting out words, that I
would not want anybody to hear, suspecting they’ll think I have gone
luny. This kind of performance can hardly be called art. It is indeed a
madness which gets a hold of you,
but it
is some sort of a divine madness, a
mania daimonike. I frequently have these fits at hearing music
which affects me or at reading a passage in a book that stirs me or
when suddenly a deep insight dawns. Sometimes it even happens out of
the sheer blue, without a reason. Then I leap up and I feel the ecstasy
get a hold of me It’s strange that such a fit always keeps the
middle between utter happiness and deep grief, as if these two feelings
are mutually extensive and the one is not possible without the other.
Without any
predictable order these two emotions overlap each other. Sorrow and
happiness seem to deepen each other and to give mutual significance.
During
these ecstatic fits the consciousness continues to function normally,
however embedded in violent emotions it may be. It is like a hurricane
raging through the soul. I sometimes wonder why these ecstatic moments
are so intense and so vigorous. Can it be that one is experiencing by
then the creative strength of your whole organism or perhaps even of
the whole of creation? Perhaps this is the most striking external
characteristic of ecstasy: that explosive bundling of energy which is
looking for a way out. You dance, you sing and you praise God. You feel
complete. You loses yourself and find your Self. God is chuckling
exuberantly in the deepest of your soul.
But
always is there: awareness. Possibly this is the second most striking
feature of religious ecstasy. For this vigorously rotating hurricane
also has a quiet eye from where everything is observed. Despite the
violent emotionality there always remains a still rationality at work.
The rational capacities are not in the least eliminated by the raging
hurricane. And this is I think the variable that enables us to
distinguish religious madness from other types of madness. In other
forms of self loss consciousness is totally erased because a deep
notion of what occurs would be too painful and could not be endured by
the weak ego. In real madness one loses its self, while floating
completely rudderless and desperately around in the storm. In religious
madness one finds its Self again. Religious frenzy points to what you
really are. Only this form of self loss is pleasant because by now you
obtain something that is better than your old self has ever been. The
ecstasy gives you glimpses of your new Self, the face which you
had before your were born. The ecstasy makes you conscious of
your own potential, of the regions your consciousness will expand to.
What
can this still awareness in the middle of the hurricane else be than
God’s own eye, which looks at creation and sees that it is all well? At
that moment of frenzied ecstasy God is suddenly aware of Itself.
Then divinity contemplates Its own
energy, Its own love and Its own beauty. Then It is prone to burst out
in dancing and jubilation because by then the circle is round. Then
consciousness has become aware of itself. And with that the ultimate
goal of everything has been reached! For what
else can the purpose of the Divine Play be? Maybe
this is the only reason why there is life in
this universe, that evolution can bring itself to a phase in which the
divine eventually will be Self
referring. In the ecstasy this moment already
announces itself for the glimpse of a second. Not yet as
permanent
feature of the human spirit, but merely as a passing storm. But nevertheless
the ecstasy
lets us already experience what
will be possible in human consciousness in the near future.
And that
brings me to ask the following questions: why is ecstasy not a
permanent state? What do we have to do to make it permanent? Why are we
so seldom ecstatic? The answer is in fact relatively simple: we simply do not
allow ourselves
to be so. We all
have made ecstasy a
cultural
taboo, not only the drug induced ecstasy,
but
also the pure religious ecstasy.
We seem
to be afraid of being ecstatic. For ecstasy
appears to be undermining all our certainties and all
of our fixed patterns of behavior. She is too vigorous and her energy
is not seldom devastating. We seem not to be able to manage her
enormous power. But it is funny in a way if we consider that everyone
wants be ecstatic to
the
depth of his soul.
Young
people still have it, the desire and the aptitude for ecstasy. They
want to live entirely ecstatic, in music, in their contacts with their
friends, in their sex and their drugs, but also in the dream world of
fantasy and art. Their ego has
not yet set up
too strong a defense against the ecstacic
impulses
from their subconsciousness. These impulses point to what potentially is present in the
sub- and supraconsciousness. As from birth a spirituality develops in
human consciousness that can later on lead to self
realisation. Even in young people that spirituality
is already developing. Only at a later stage,
say from the late twenties, can that spirituality begin to fully
blosom, when the ego has reached full maturity and the mental faculties
are well established. Only at that time has
consciousness developed this far that it can understand
and can
integrate the spiritual dimensions of the mind and the soul.
One would
expect therefore older people
to
be more ecstatic than younger
people. For their spiritual capacities seem to be more
developed. And this seems to be the case. If you are ecstatic when
being older than the experience will be much more profound than when
you are young. You have much more insight in the emotional workings of
ecstasy and what kind of theoretical insights the ecstatic moments
provide. Your feelings and your thoughts are far more integrated than
when you were young. The ecstasy
has
become a real religious experience. When you are young the ecstasy seems
more to be part of your lust for recreation, for 'having a
good time'. This kind of ecstasy
is more
superficial. She doesn't last longer than the 'kick' lasts. She is
experienced
but not sufficiently understood. She has no full grown spiritual
dimension.
But
why are older people
nevertheless less ecstatic than younger people? Perhaps the
disadvantageous inclination for
self protection of the ripe ego is to be blamed. The ego of older
people has become so strong in a life of self conservation,
competition, ambition and the hunt for success, that by now it can
completely repress the strength of
ecstasy breaking
loose. In young people the ego is not yet strong enough. The ego of the
elderly ensures
this subconscious repression because ecstasy tends to
be very dangerous for the mental
structures of the ego. Ecstasy
is
litterally a death threath.
Because ecstasy is an
indication from the subconsciousness (or rather the supraconscious, see
the article on Roberto
Assagioli) that further growth beyond
the ego possible, because the ego is but a momentary
stage that can be left
behind if you want to become fully mature and happy. But most of
the
people have turned their ego into a stronghold. All other aspects of
the self are left out of the picture and are rejected. Ecstasy
is one of the greatest enemies for her capacity to take in the
stronghold and destroy it.
Society is very cunning at keeping at bay and repressing
the disruptive feelings of ecstasy.
Only in art and very seldom in institutionalized religion is ecstasy
allowed, but always in a marginalized setting. It can and may never
become a treath to social and cultural structure. This will never be
allowed by society. So the fact that young people are more ecstatic has
also to do with them being less nested inside the social structure.
They are relatively free to enjoy their feelings of ecstasy.
'Enjoy while you are young!' we say to our children and we sigh because
we know the implications of these
words: to be
older is less enjoyable.
But religious ecstasy
lies at the root of our existence. Not only when we are young. We are all ecstatic by
nature. If somehow the Self is
capable of scraping of all layers of conditioning, the soot that is
blackening up our true nature, then there will shine out a Light of
incredible power and magnitude. We only have to let this ecstasy
happen and not stand in the way of it happening. Our own personal
will is the blockade. So we have to unconditionally surrender to this
mighty Force. We have to step across the threshold of our little self,
of our limited personality. We have to make contact again with our
Original Face that we were since the beginning of time. It only needs a
change, a transformation in our consciousness. We have to stop
identifying ourself with our personality.
Then ecstasy
will be set loose, unhampered and unrepressed. Then jubilation will
rise up in our hearts on moments we expect it the least. Then will we
find true happiness, when we see a flower, when we hear beautiful music
or when we caress a loved one. By then every stap will be a dance of
joy. But who dares to surrender to a wider context? Will fear always
keep ecstasy
at bay? Who is brave enough to lose controle and give in? But now
everyone seems to dread the spiritual freedom needed to experience ecstasy.
but it
is some sort of a divine madness, a
mania daimonike. I frequently have these fits at hearing music
which affects me or at reading a passage in a book that stirs me or
when suddenly a deep insight dawns. Sometimes it even happens out of
the sheer blue, without a reason. Then I leap up and I feel the ecstasy
get a hold of me It’s strange that such a fit always keeps the
middle between utter happiness and deep grief, as if these two feelings
are mutually extensive and the one is not possible without the other.
Without any
predictable order these two emotions overlap each other. Sorrow and
happiness seem to deepen each other and to give mutual significance.
Itself.
Then divinity contemplates Its own
energy, Its own love and Its own beauty. Then It is prone to burst out
in dancing and jubilation because by then the circle is round. Then
consciousness has become aware of itself. And with that the ultimate
goal of everything has been reached! For what
else can the purpose of the Divine Play be? Maybe
this is the only reason why there 
